California Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed that he did not want to bulldoze the remains of burned-down Palisades houses and replace them with low-income housing. But that is apparently exactly what he’s doing now, with the help of the California legislature—and Donald Trump’s special missions envoy is furious.
Richard Grenell accused Newsom of lying about his fire recovery goals. Newsom had scoffed, “The claim that the Governor wants to bulldoze fire victims’ neighborhoods and replace them with ‘affordable housing’ is absurd.” But he just announced over $100 million for building low-income housing in the area of the Palisades and other burned areas, as a bill moves through the California legislature to allow such housing to be built on burned-down lots. The bill, which passed the state Senate on Wednesday, would change the law to support the governor’s shameful land grab. Trust Democrats to gang up on their citizens.
Trump administration special envoy Richard Grenell wrote on X, “@GavinNewsom lied. He said he wouldn’t grab the land where homes burned down in the Palisades to build low-income housing facilities - but he and Karen Bass just did. They are changing the character of the Palisades and Malibu to fit their woke agenda. They don’t care what residents want. They can’t even deliver building permits properly. But this fight is not over.”
Grenell and Newsom have been at odds for a while, after Grenell advised the president not to send billions of taxpayer dollars for California fire recovery until the Democrats there agreed to reform their fire and water management system, which prioritizes woke climate dogma and thus wastes water, leaving areas vulnerable to dangerous fires. Newsom responded by griping about Grenell’s “audacity.”
In California…
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) July 6, 2025
We live on the ocean but our Governor can’t figure out how to get more water - so he spends millions of tax dollars telling people to not water their lawns and to take faster showers.
We have 33 million acres of forest land but our Governor can’t figure out how…
As Grenell tries to pressure Newsom into making better decisions before another devastating fire occurs, the governor is only focused on spending more money on his pet projects. Unfortunately, the Democrat-run legislature is ready to help. Essentially, the newly passed state Senate bill would allocate 40% of recovery funds for government low-income housing, using property taxes.
Notably, California SB549 mandates, “The infrastructure financing plan requires that at least 40 percent of the total funds received by the district pursuant to this section be used for the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of housing, including the costs of predevelopment and land acquisition, for households with incomes below 60 percent of area median income for rent or purchase.” This bill could allow the government to purchase ruined land to build low-income housing, using lots that previously had single-family homes.
Related: California Democrats (Looking at You, Gavin Newsom) Pull a Bait and Switch on Palisades Fire Victims
Newsom asserted that the bill would “accelerate the development of affordable multifamily rental housing so that those rebuilding their lives after this tragedy have access to a safe, affordable place to come home to,” he said in a statement. And homeowners having difficulty rebuilding their single-family homes in the area are understandably worried.
San Diego Post explained:
The bill also revises the state’s existing Neighborhood Infill Finance and Transit Improvements Act, or NIFTI-2. Under current law, cities and counties can create Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts (EIFDs) that receive revenue from local sales and use taxes. But SB 549 changes that formula: starting in 2026, cities and counties would instead be allowed to allocate property tax revenues to these districts, rather than sales tax revenue, and the previous requirement that district boundaries match the city or county lines would be repealed. That would provide greater flexibility in defining where recovery investments are focused—and who benefits.
Or, in other words, the California government would get to have arbitrary control over whom it wants to benefit most in the fire recovery.
My colleague Victoria Taft noted that Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass dragged out the permit process for people seeking to rebuild after the fire, and that the reason appears to have been that the two Democrats were waiting to pull a bait-and-switch with the low-income housing. You can never trust a Democrat politician not to lie.
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